Biology self efficacy beliefs of the students studying in the department of biology and department of biology teaching

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the self-efficacy beliefs toward biology of the students studying in the department of biology and studying in the department of biology teaching. Also in this study biology self-efficacy beliefs of students were examined according to variables of grade and department. The study was done through survey method. The research was held in 2008-2009 spring semester Faculty of Education Biology Teaching Program 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade students and Faculty of Science Department of Biology 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students-478 students in total. As a tool of data collection, biology self-efficacy scale was used in this study. Findings indicate that biology self-efficacy beliefs of students are at the mid-level. In addition, in this study it was identified that biology self-efficacy of students studying in department of biology teaching is higher than the self-efficacy of students studying in the department of biology. Also, at the end of eta-square correlation coefficient analysis it was determined that variable of department affected self-efficacy towards biology at a low level (μ=.01). On the other hand, it was identified that variable of grade did not affect the biology self-efficacy beliefs.